Summer/Fall www.midamericadharma.org June, 2007 Clinging to Rites and Rituals By Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia Several years ago, during a group practice interview at a Clinging to Methods and Techniques ten-day vipassana retreat I was teaching, the topic of Have you ever come away from a sitting with the smug discussion turned toward realizing nibbana. As the feeling that the practice is going well because you were interview progressed, one fellow in the group became able to sit upright unflinchingly for the hour? increasingly agitated. Finally, when he was unable to Silabataparamasa also involves putting undue emphasis contain himself any longer, he blurted out: “Okay. Let’s on developing the methods or techniques of practice, cut to the chase. Who do I have to know? And where do I becoming skilled at using the tools without fully have to go?” recognizing that tools are tools, not the goal. Silabataparamasa , one of three defilements uprooted at the On a recent trip to Thailand, I visited a monastery in the first stage of enlightenment, is defined as holding firmly to central part of the country. High on the walls of the the view that through rules and rituals, rites, ceremonies bamboo and grass Dhamma hall the resident monks had and practices one may reach purification. Here, we aren’t hung sepia-stained photographs of famous Thai masters of just talking about incantations and rituals in the usual the last century. Of course, it was inspiring to see so many sense. Silabataparamasa also includes bhavana, or arahants in one place, but what impressed me most was meditation practice. In essence, we think that our freedom the fact that none of them had particularly good posture. is found in getting good at doing the meditation practice or doing it out of some sense of obligation or Thai meditation master Ajahn Lee said that sometimes righteousness without reflecting accurately on what it is people think they are practicing meditation but all they are all about. Thus, we fail to experience what is possible doing is sitting like a post. We can look the part, can’t we? through our practice. But how we look or how skilled we become at applying the methods of practice doesn’t say anything about how Clinging to a Tradition well the meditation is going. We may be able to sit Silabataparamasa can manifest as an overzealousness about perfectly still for an hour, but all the time we may be selecting the right teacher, form or tradition in which to daydreaming or thinking about things. We may watch practice. It’s as if we think, “If I could just find the right each inhalation and exhalation but fail to contemplate the teacher, travel to the right corner of the universe, then I’d impermanent, unsatisfactory and selfless nature of reach the goal. It’s all out there somewhere, and I just have phenomenon. We may be able to keep coming back to the to find it and align myself with it.” We can spend many breath but neglect to notice the craving or aversion that years traveling to different meditation centers, trying out took us away. Thus, we never internalize the Dhamma for different traditions. We can intellectualize and even argue ourselves. We never actually experience freedom, just skill about the whats and wherefores of each one, but we never at handling the tools of practice get around to applying ourselves in any of them. The message here is to give some thought to how we In one of the suttas, Magandiya asks the Buddha how one understand the tools of practice. For example, why do we realizes inner peace. The Buddha says that it is only by go on retreat? Is it to escape from the busyness or taking tradition as the means and not grasping it as an end harshness of life? If we find ourselves mourning the loss of in itself that one realizes inner peace. When practiced stillness when the retreat is over, we may be guilty of correctly, all forms of Buddhist practice lead to freedom. confusing the raft for the other shore. Do we think there is Our task is to find the form that speaks to us and then to something magical about sitting or that something is going apply ourselves to it wholeheartedly. to happen if we just do it long enough? If so, we’ve 1 probably left many a retreat with a feeling of so. We need to lose the barrier that the “trying” sets up disappointment. and settle into now. Retreat is a special environment. We enjoy the luxury of Early on, we may not see that our practice is driven by having an extended period of time during which we can self-view. We want to get somewhere, achieve something, train ourselves to stand back from experience. When we but this orientation puts us outside the very truth we are do this long enough, and well enough, we lose some of trying to realize. There’s always me and it, me and my our preoccupation with the content of our lives and we practice, me and the states I am trying to become. gradually untangle the web of confusion about what Anything that we are trying to become is never realized. constitutes happiness and suffering. Retreat is simply a We only begin to enjoy the fullness of freedom as self-view way to apply ourselves to this enterprise in a very weakens and we are content to just be and know what is deliberate way. But the point is to become able to get up happening. from the cushion and live life with greater skill and Perhaps it can’t be any other way. We come to practice understanding, less craving and ignorance, and, therefore, filled with self-absorption. It takes time for that to wear less suffering. The Buddha was quite clear on this. He down. At some point, we begin to lose the sense of self as instructed us to apply ourselves in all four postures and in the one who is doing the practice. We stop trying to all our activities throughout the day—not just while we “become” concentrated and mindful and instead look for are sitting or on retreat. It’s a 24/7 kind of thing. If we the experience of relaxed awareness in each moment. With don’t see this, we run the risk of compartmentalizing the this little shift in perspective, relaxed awareness becomes formal practice when we would dearly benefit from seeing less a skill that we are trying to develop and more an that all life is practice. experience into which we settle. From this new vantage Clinging to Ideas about Practice point, the Dhamma can’t help but reveal itself to us. Perhaps the subtlest form of attachment to meditation is The great Thai Forest master Ajahn Mun said that clinging to our ideas about it. We hear the meditation Dhamma will not serve us well if all we do is comply with instruction and fill our heads with notions about what it is rules or follow directions. Understanding the Buddha’s and what we are trying to experience. In the beginning, we teaching on clinging to the meditation practice can help us really have no idea what mindfulness and concentration break free of our attachments to forms and traditions, are. But that doesn’t stop us from thinking we do! methods and techniques, and ideas and notions about practice so that we can see directly what constitutes our I can recall a time when I was on a long retreat at IMS, suffering, how we got there, how we let go, and how it being ever so mindful. I was quite confident that anyone feels to be free. who noticed me walking through the dining hall would know I was a very good yogi. One day, as I closed the door to my room behind me, I let out a huge sigh of relief. Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia has been a Dhamma teacher This really got my attention! Suddenly I could see that for since 1990. She is a student of the western forest sangha, the entire retreat I had been trying to live up to my idea of the disciples of Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Chah, and is a what it looks like to be mindful. Lay Buddhist Minister in association with Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in California. What if mindfulness and concentration are not what we think they are? What if thinking about them and trying to Taraniya will be leading a Mid America Dharma make ourselves experience them are the chief obstacles to residential retreat, October 25-28, 2007 in the St. Louis actually abiding in them? There’s a big difference between area. The topic will be the Sattipatana Sutta . See our trying to be mindful and concentrated and actually being Retreats page for details. 3 Sangha News Note: we’ve done our best to provide accurate listings, but please use the contact information to verify all specific listings, events and dates of interest. Things change! Arkansas - Little Rock Illinois - Rockford The Ecumenical Buddhist Society - 1015 Second St., Little SatSang Sangha - meets Saturdays at 7:30 AM in members’ Rock, AR 72201 - meets Sundays at 7:00 PM for a thirty minute homes to practice sitting meditation and to share reading silent sitting followed by a book discussion. materials, tapes and breakfast. We are an eclectic Contact: Phebe Duff, [email protected] , 501-975-4060 group drawing direction from the Insight Meditation Society Website: www.ebslr.org and Goenka, both coming from the Theravada (insight meditation) tradition of Buddhism; and Thich Nhat Hanh’s Illinois - Carbondale version of Zen Buddhism.